Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

When Does Joel Klein Get Sent To Jail?

Just like we have been saying all along, the test score gains under Chancellor Klein in New York City were fraudulent and so were the graduation and drop-out rates.

The test scores have already been publicly exposed as fraudulent.

Now a state audit has proof on the drop-out and grad rates:

The state controller ripped the city for downplaying the school dropout rate in an audit released Tuesday.

The city's rate was actually as high as 16.5% for general education students in the class of 2008 - three points higher than the city reported, the audit found.

The dropout rate for special education students was as high as 23.8%, while the city reported a 17.2% dropout rate.

"The city school system needs to sharpen its pencils when it comes to knowing which kids are dropping out and which kids are transferring to another school," said state Controller DiNapoli in a statement.

"(The education department) should be doing its homework and making sure the right papers are turned in to back up the reasons why students are leaving school."

The audit also found that the city's graduation rate was lower than reported. For general education students, it was as low as 62.9%, versus the 65.5% graduation rate reported that year.

The audit looked at students who had been classified as "discharged" - or formally classified as having left city schools for another district, private school or other programs. Students who are discharged are not counted as dropouts and do not lower the graduation rate.

In a random sample of 500 general education students discharged by the city, the auditors found that the city did not have the proper documentation for 74 - or 15 % - and should have classified them as dropouts.

The city claimed these were just mistakes, there was no purposeful deception involved.

Uh, huh.

Just like Klein didn't know the test score gains he was touting as miraculous were horseshit even though the NY Times revealed that Klein KNEW that was the case.

Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein have long been the darlings of education reform.

But with recent revelations exposing them as frauds, they ought to be in prison making license plates.

2 comments:

  1. I'm still wondering about the conflict of interest thing too...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fraud is fraud, and fraud is a crime. The worse kind of crime, the one that is destroying this country from within, is the lying and corruption of our public officials, yet they ALWAYS get a pass.

    ReplyDelete